ITVN box into a tivo ?

I've never heard of ITVN.

What does this box do?

Does it have a tuner of some sort where channels can be changed?

Are you in the U.S. or some other country?

Need more details here...

 

There's no ITVN channel info available in Zap2it, and hence, from Tivo, so you need to connect the ITVN box to the S2's RCA inputs as described here for a VCR.

 

Advertisements

Hi guys. I have similar problems/questions.

As some of you may know, virtually the only TV source for us soccer nuts in the USA are the cable channels Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV. One of the big reasons to get FSC is to watch the English Premier League, which just started a few weeks ago. However, FSC sold/loaned the rights to half of its EPL games to Setanta Sports, a newish network only available in the USA on DirecTV. Setanta also appears to have fantastic coverage of other international soccer leagues and competitions, as well as coverage of rugby union, rugby league, gaelic football and hurling, aussie rules, and lots of other stuff we simply can't see anywhere else in the USA on any kind of reasonable basis.

Hence a lot of us are salivating at the thought of getting access to Setanta Sports, however many of us for various reasons can't or won't get DirecTV, so this new ITVN service looks very tempting. Plus you can get it a la carte, so if you just want Setanta Sports you can just get that and don't have to pay for other channels. But this service isn't much use to me if I can't TiVo it or at least have some kind of basic DVR ability with it. Since there's no guide data I'm not going to get the full TiVo experience, but since this is just for Setanta Sports and nothing else, it would not be too burdensome for me to dust off one of my unused TiVos, or my little-used ReplayTV box, and hook it up to this ITVN box and make manual recordings of the stuff I want to watch.

Since I have extra TiVos laying around I'll probably go with the manual recording route; I should be able to hook up the ITVN box up to my cable modem, then hook up the ITVN box to my TiVo, and then hook up the TiVo to the TV. Without guide data it will be crude, but with only one channel to deal with I should be okay, I assume I can grab regular Setanta Sports schedules off of their website and manually program the TiVo. I'm starting to lean towards getting the ITVN box; it is free with one year's service, and at $14.95 a month for Setanta Sports it isn't outrageously expensive considering the quality of the content which from what I have heard is several orders of magnitude better than what FSC or GolTV offer.

If you've only got one TiVo, however, I don't think the solution I've outlined above for myself would be very useful. Basically what I outlined above would have to require devoting one TiVo to just recording from the ITVN box and not doing anything else. I don't think you can get the TiVo to share between the ITVN box and your other source (ie, your cable, satellite, or OTA antenna) but I've never thought about this before so I don't know off hand whether this would be possible or not; would have to look at the TiVo inputs and outputs again.....

Anyway if the above info is correct we should be able to hook the ITVN box up to a TiVo and do manual recordings.....I don't know about what kind of connections the ITVN box has, so if someone has an ITVN box could you post a basic discription of the kinds of inputs and outputs this box has. Thanks.

 

Basically it's a box that hooks up over ethernet to your broadband modem or router, then outputs to your TV set. You watch the TV channels live, via IP.

Here's their website:

http://www.itvn.com

This link makes installation look fairly straightforward:

http://www.itvn.com/support.html

So looking at the box it appears to have an ethernet port and an output to the TV in the form of the red/white/yellow cables (composite or component cables; I always get the names mixed up) and an S-Video output. They also appear to have digital audio and those new red/blue/green video outputs (again, either composite or component; I get the names confused), however given the quality of the IP streaming video I doubt these would be very useful; from what I've heard so far the ITVN service is good, but not as good as what you can get from DirecTV or digital cable.

So anyway, it should be pretty easy to output this to a TiVo, but you'll have to manually record everything since there is no guide data, and that TiVo would have to be a DVR dedicated to the ITVN box exclusively, I believe, and could not be shared with another TV source. So basically you need an extra TiVo if you don't already have one. And since there is no way for TiVo to change the channel on the ITVN box, you're stuck with one channel for manual time shifting. Not a problem for me since I only want Setanta Sports; big problem for anyone who intends to use ITVN for multiple channels.

ITVN's a pretty new service, but it would be nice if we could get TiVo to provide guide data for it....I'm surprised ITVN has not already worked out something with Tribune Media and the other providers of TV guide data. Fortunately, the Setanta Sports feed over ITVN is exactly the same as the Setanta Sports feed over DirecTV, and Sentanta Sports does have their TV schedule info on their website, so manually programming a TiVo to record games on Setanta Sports is doable.

Edit to add: actually looking at the ITVN box, TiVo would need more than just guide data for the ITVN box to work, if one is getting more than just one channel from the ITVN service. It looks like one changes channels on the ITVN box via an onscreen guide and an IR remote control, so in order to change channels TiVo would probably need the IR codes to control the ITVN box, so that's another problem to overcome. If ITVN sticks around though, they need to work on this problem and make themselves more TiVo-friendly. Officially they are saying they do not support TiVo and are basically not commenting on this issue. I hope they decide to become a bit more TiVo-friendly in future; it would help them a lot to make their service more appealing and useful.

Here's the Setanta Sports website if anyone is interested in them:

http://www.setanta.com/

 

Hey guys, that was great info. I am also interested in getting the ITVN box. But can anyone tell me if it can just be hooked up to a regular vcr for recording games??
Thanks.

 

Looking at the ITVN box on their website I would say yes; you simply run the connections from the ITVN box to the VCR inputs instead of to the TV or the TiVo, and then run the outputs from the VCR to the TV. Think of the ITVN box as a replacement for your digital cable box or satellite receiver box; it works just the same way, except it is getting its feed over the internet, rather than from the cable company or from a satellite. Otherwise it is just the same, with the same kinds of outputs. So the VCR should work fine.

The only real reason to use a TiVo is if you 1) have a spare TiVo that you can devote exclusively to the ITVN box, and 2) don't mind doing manual recordings on the TiVo, and 3) prefer the limited manual recording ability on the TiVo to using a VCR. Without the ITVN guide data or the ability to control the ITVN box via IR blaster, the TiVo box loses most of its functionality, however.

If you have a spare VCR but don't have a spare TiVo, use the VCR. The only real advantage a manual recording on a TiVo has over a VCR is that the steps to program it are easier, and you don't have to use tapes. And of course, you can store more games on the TiVo than you can store on a VHS tape, and managing your recordings on hard disk via an onscreen guide and a remote is easier than managing a physical collection of actual VHS tapes. Otherwise the time shifting functionality is about the same.

Most people will probably find the VCR route preferable because probably most people don't have a spare unused TiVo lying around, whereas most TiVo users do have a spare unused VCR.

 

I subscribed to the ITVN service for the same reason others have mentioned (Setanta Sports) - it was also the cheaper version to get SS without switching to DirecTV. With my layout, the ITVN box and computer are in my office, so I decided just to record the games on my hard drive and watch them on my PC.

The setup is extremely easy, and I was up and running in 10 minutes. I set it up to record a game mid-day. I was at work, and looked forward to coming home that night and watching the game. When I pressed playback on my computer, all I got was an ITVN Screensaver screen for 2 hours.

I contacted them right away and asked about this screensaver (I didn't see it referenced anywhere in the documentation). The reply I received is that it should only occur if the feed is interrupted. Since no one was in the house all day, I can't attribute it to human error. So that made me suspicious.

Just watching the live feed on my PC didn't meet my needs. Picture clarity wasn't very good, lots of pixellation (I have very reliable cable modem access...). I was able to convince the Mrs that we gave it the good economical try, but it just wasn't working. She agreed , and I just had DirecTV installed and I subscribed to Setanta package. There is no comparison in my satisfaction (again mainly due to my setup and configuration).

I'm in the process of returning the ITVN box now (still in 30-day money back guarantee).

As mentioned by others:
1. There are a few screens you have to go through on the ITVN box screen to get to the Setanta feed. So this may be a problem if it kicks back into "screensaver" mode if left unattended for any duration. You could get one of those "learning remote controls" to see if that could fire off signals required to navigate to Setanta.
2. Composite and S-Video cables are very straightforward, so should be able to hook into Tivo, VCR, other recording device with no problem.

If you have any specific questions, I could try to answer them...

 

Thanks, that was very helpful. DirecTV is not an option for me, so for me it is either this ITVN box, or the much less useful Setanta Broadband, or nothing.

Using a learning remote control to fool the ITVN box into not going into screen saver mode might work, but would be awful kludgey - I suppose you mean one of those "dumby VCR remotes" that you point at the VCR and set a timer for. Possibly workable but not something I really want to have to put up with.

ITVN is a very new service, so hopefully they are listening to complaints of new users. Do us a favor, when you return the ITVN box and cancel service, make sure to tell them all of your complaints, including the screen saver thing. They will make efforts to fix things if they want to stay in business. The user should be able to disable the screensaver feature for instance, or program the box to immediately revert to a particular channel if the feed is interrupted. There are software updates or fixes they should be able to implement to existing ITVN boxes in service.

Picture quality and pixilation are a lesser problem for me as I have a modest SD TV set, 27inches, and most of the comments I've seen say that on a modest TV screen ITVN is better than VHS quality but not as good as digital cable or satellite, which is good enough for me.

I'm still on the fence since I really want Setanta Sports but I'm unhappy the ITVN service is apparently so unfriendly to DVR users (at this point in time).

 

Hey guys, thanks for the info. I got the ITVN box, and hooked it up to my router. Pretty simple to do. But had buffering issues even at the lowest bitrates. So i tried the port triggering they suggest in their tech support forums, and bingo, it worked!!! I even left the box on (just turned off the tv) all night and until i came home from work the next day, and it was still on the Setanta channel. So i don't think there will be any problems taping games while i'm at work. Will hook up a vcr this weekend and try it while i'm here. Will let you know if it works.
dmdeane, you should get the ITVN box and try it, it's well worth it for all the football that's gonna be on setanta this season, and they have a 30 day money back guarantee so you have nothing to lose. If you have a decent broadband connection, you'll have no problems. The picture quality isn't perfect, but it's pretty good and i'm only using the composite cables that came with it, i'm gonna try a s-video cable, they say it will make a big difference.

 

Thanks. I think I will order this thing and check it out.

 

That's certainly bad news that you can't easily use ITVN with a TiVo. Like everybody else, I was thinking about subscribing just to get Setanta. It's the only source for Aussie Rules this year. But, considering the season is pretty much over, I'll definitely hold off until next year. Maybe it'll be more TiVo friendly by then. Heck, Setanta might not even carry Aussie Rules next season for all I know.

What channels are included in that 9.95 Entertainment Plus Live TV package? I can't find a list on ITVN's site.

 

My TiVo is an S1; I had no trouble connecting the ITVN box to my TiVo.

I have my cable box connected to the TiVo via coax, and the ITVN box connected via s-video. I have the TiVo set up for cable+satellite. So when I record "Directv", the TiVo tries to change channels on the non-existent Directv box and then records the ITVN box output.

This should work with Setanta, Starz, etc. Of course, you have to leave the ITVN box tuned to the channel you want to record; TiVo won't change ITVN channels, which is a slow multistep process anyway. But if you are only interested in one channel (e.g. Setanta), that is not a problem. The screen saver should not kick in; in my experience, it comes on only if you are in the channel guide.

If you are allowing Suggestions, you will want to delete most of the hundreds of Directv channels that will appear, leaving only those you want to record from.

 

Hi All,

I just wanted to bump this thread to see if there's any more info on ITVN and TiVo. We're thinking about getting it for the Setanta programming and the Rugby World Cup. (This is the ITVN website. )

Right now we subscribe to the Rugby Channel through Media Zone. We download the games to our laptop and then watch them on our LCD TV. The PQ is really pretty bad (as is the audio). We don't want to switch from cable to DirecTV, so we're looking at ITVN.

We have an old S1 or a ST S2 that we can dedicate to recording ITVN. I found these instructions on the ITVN Forum for setting up an S2:

Just wondering if anyone else can recommend ITVN and if anyone has had any success recording ITVN/Setanta programs using their TiVo.

Thanks very much for any advice!

 

The above recommendation will work fine.

 

Excellent...cheers for that.

With regard to using an S2 Vs an S1, the S2 would have to be subbed to download the DirectTV schedule and an un-subed S1 could be set to manually record (since there would be no schedule) correct?

Thanks again!